Explore

Channels

Highlights

General

Contests

Fun

Generative AI

Ideas

Off Topic

Tips & Tricks

General
Follow

Share your favorite snippet or utility

Matt Fig on 20 Sep 2012

Latest activity Reply by DGM on 23 Feb 2023

I am wondering what others use for those little short-cuts or niceties in MATLAB. I have in mind something you wrote or something somebody else wrote or an underused MW function.

Here are my two favorites.

This is a simple script I use. Here is the entire contents of CLC.m (yes, it is capitalized):

clear all,close all,clc

Very simple, but I use it all the time. Here is another one I use so often that I forget not every machine has it (though every machine should, IMO):

whats

Here is an underused MW function that I occasionally employ when working on someone else's machine. The usual response is, "Wait, what did you just do?"

home

What are some of yours?

2 (last 30 days)

40 Comments

DGM on 23 Feb 2023

apropos.m

For some reason, I can never remember the name of the lookfor() function, and looking for the lookfor() function is a pain when you don't know what it's called.

So I just called it what I expected it to be called

apropos 'modified bessel'
besseli                        - Modified Bessel function of first kind
besselk                        - Modified Bessel function of second kind
besseli                        - Modified Bessel function of the first kind for symbolic expressions
besselk                        - Modified Bessel function of the second kind for symbolic expressions

Darik on 21 Sep 2012

I'm a clumsy typist...

function hepl (x)
  help (x)
end

1 Reply

Sean de Wolski on 21 Sep 2012

Tyop corrections in R2012b!!

hepl fmincon

Undefined function 'hepl' for input arguments of type 'char'.

Did you mean:

>> help fmincon

I already highlighted this as my second favorite new feature:

doic fmincon

Matt Fig on 21 Sep 2012

@Sean, I have only the command window and a minimized command history open to the left of that space. No docked anything. I am old-school. That is why I like whats so much, one simple command and I can do it all and I don't have to keep any more panels open all the time. Let me know "what" you think if you try it.

Image Analyst on 21 Sep 2012

Is there any way to make a shortcut button called something like "Format Code" which essentially does Control-A (to select all the text in the editor window) followed by Control-I (to fix up the indenting/alignment)? That's a nice set of utility commands that I use often.

Sean de Wolski on 21 Sep 2012

@Matt, do you not keep the current directory panel open? I might have to give whats a try if it means I could close that panel.

Shane on 21 Sep 2012

I use uigetfile and uigetdir day in and day out, so when I am writing a new code I always add this code to the beginning of my function and I love it:

if isappdata(0,'previousDirectory')                                             
    startDirectory=getappdata(0,'previousDirectory');
    if isnumeric(startDirectory)
        startDirectory='C:\';
    end
else
 startDirectory='C:\';
end
[uigf1 uigf2]=uigetfile('*.bdf','SelectFile to Load',startDirectory); 
setappdata(0,'previousDirectory',uigf2);

Simply saves my directory location so that I dont start at C:\MyDocuments|MATLAB every time.

Robert Cumming on 21 Sep 2012

Downloaded whats for the first time - very handy! :)

Srinivas on 20 Sep 2012

I have a lazy shortcut to open the current folder I am working in

system(strcat('%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe',' "',pwd,'"'));

Robert Cumming on 20 Sep 2012

I second home - its very useful, the number of times I've had to go to a colleagues screen to help them debug and they have typed clc thinking they are helping me start - but of course that clears the error and any messages on the screen....

My favourite - its not a snippet but a code I would struggle to do wihtout since I work on multiple project is my SaveEditorHistory FEX.

Daniel Shub on 20 Sep 2012

@Sean, I cannot get dbquit to be recursive, but adding the following makes it so calling it twice works

    if feature('IsDebugMode')
      disp('MATLAB was in debug mode, cll must be run a second time.')
      dbquit('all');
    end

Sean de Wolski on 20 Sep 2012

gohome

%Go home
cd('H:\Documents\MATLAB');

fgcf

figure(gcf);

I used this through grad school since I would always lose my figures on the Mac. Since starting here, I discovered the very similar shg() and have made the transition.

thesaurus

function thesaurus(word)
%SCd 07/19/2010
%Function to look up synonyms to input word.
%
%Uses www.thesaurus.com
%
%How to use:
%   thesaurus('useful')
%   thesaurus useful
%   thesaurus 'useful'
%
    web(['http://thesaurus.com/browse/' num2str(word)],'-browser');
end

Sean (my vanity function)

function Sean(varargin)
%Sean is awesome
    fprintf('\b is awesome!\n');
end

FEX:uiswitchrenderer

Is defaulted in my startup.m file

function v = vec(m)
%Helper function to turn a matrix of any size into a column vector using (:)
%    This function is meant to make one-line computations easy/fast when
%    subscripting already.  
%SCd 01/04/2011 (First function of 2011!)
%
%Updates: -05/24/2011: Used reshape instead of colon for speed.
%
%Usage: v = vec(m)
%
%Example:       
%    %Original way to one line the median of a slice of 3d matrix:
%    M = repmat(magic(200),[1 1 200]); %200x200x200 magic squares
%    Mmed = median(reshape(M(:,:,34),[],1)); %34th slice
%    
%    %Using the vec() function
%    Mmed = median(vec(M(:,:,34)));
%
%Input Arguments:
%   -m: matrix of any size
%
%Output Arguments:
%   -v: m(:)
%
%See Also: colon reshape
%
    v = reshape(m,numel(m),1);
end

wpwd

function wpwd
%winopen(pwd)
    winopen(pwd)
end

Sean de Wolski on 20 Sep 2012

I call mine cll contents:

%Nuke it from Orbit!
close all force;
clear;
clc;

Note I don't do clear all (and try to never do it) since I like keeping the JIT happy.

I also tried to add a recursive dbquit into this but could not get it to actually work.

Albert Yam on 20 Sep 2012

home

Just blew my mind.

Albert Yam on 20 Sep 2012

I have a few shortcut buttons. I have the clear all; clc separate from the close all though (and an fclose(all)). I have one specifically for looking at figures, which I use pretty often.

set(gcf, 'Position', [100 50 850 600])

But the most useful one I have is,

addpath (genpath (pwd))
disp('ADD path ''pwd''')

Another 2 I have are savez and diaryz, which just add a time stamp in the filename.

Daniel Shub on 20 Sep 2012

I have three versions of your CLC that I have as shortcuts. They all came from here

The biggest hammer is

!matlab &
exit

This sometimes causes issues with the command window moving and files needing to be closed, but it really gets the job done. The second is a slightly smaller hammer that is based on the longer answer to the question. The third is the same as the second, except it doesn't screw with the path, current directory, or command window contents.

On my computer get(0, 'MonitorPosition') returns nonsense so I use

function MonitorPositions = getmonitorpositions()
  error(nargchk(0, 0, nargin, 'struct'));
  error(nargoutchk(0, 1, nargout, 'struct'));
  
  Monitors = ...
    java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment.getScreenDevices;
  MonitorPositions = zeros(length(Monitors), 4);
  for iMonitors = 1:length(Monitors)
    MonitorBounds = Monitors(iMonitors).getDefaultConfiguration.getBounds;
    MonitorPositions(iMonitors, :) = ...
      [MonitorBounds.getX, MonitorBounds.getY, ...
      MonitorBounds.getWidth, MonitorBounds.getHeight];
  end
end

I also like

    function [UserNameString, HostNameString, IpAddressString, MacAddressString] = getcomputer()
      error(nargchk(0, 0, nargin, 'struct'));
      error(nargoutchk(0, 4, nargout, 'struct'));
      UserNameString = char(java.lang.System.getProperty('user.name'));
      HostNameString = char(java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost.getHostName);
      Eth0Obj = java.net.NetworkInterface.getByName('eth0');
      MacAddressString = sprintf('%c%c-%c%c-%c%c-%c%c-%c%c-%c%c', dec2hex(mod(double(Eth0Obj.getHardwareAddress()), 256))');
      Temp = Eth0Obj.getInterfaceAddresses.size-1;
      IpAddressString = sprintf('%d.%d.%d.%d', mod(double(Eth0Obj.getInterfaceAddresses.get(Temp).getAddress.getAddress), 256));
    end

Image Analyst on 20 Sep 2012

I have another few shortcut buttons on my toolbar to quickly go to often-used folders and show the file panel. For example one button that says "Go to demos folder" and in there is this code:

cd('D:\MATLAB\work\Demos');
filebrowser;

I keep all my demos that I post here in Answers (that are worthy of keeping) in that folder.

Matt Fig on 20 Sep 2012

Yeah, I used to have a shortcut button with that code but found that I would rather type than click. Personal preference, I guess.

Image Analyst on 20 Sep 2012

That's what the Mathworks folks recommend also - I learned that in one of their training classes long ago. They had us create a shortcut button on the toolbar called "cleanup" and that code was in there.